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ISIS: Driven by Revenge or Theology? August 21, 2015
A recent article called “What ISIS Really Wants” has become the most read story every published in the history of The Atlantic. In it, Graeme Wood says that pretending that the so-called Islamic State isn’t actually a religious group, with a coherent theology, has led the rest of the world to underestimate its power. But it has caused an uproar online. One of Wood’s most thoughtful critics is Muslim scholar Yasir Qadhi, who says the problem with Wood's analysis is not what he says, but what he doesn't say: that the root causes of ISIS are "the hellish conditions Western powers created in the region." From March 2015.

Graeme Wood, lecturer in political science at Yale University and a contributing editor to The Atlantic
Yasir Qadhi, Muslim cleric and assistant professor of religion at Rhodes College


Pictured: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State, addressing followers in Mosul, Iraq.